Evening Lectures

Thank you to the University Women’s Club at Hycroft for partnering with VHF to offer this evening talk series.

COMPLETED 2018 LECTURES

October 30th - Granville Street: 1886 to Today - Commerce, Entertainment and Historic Buildings
Granville Street continues to evolve since it was first created as the centrepiece for the CPR town site in 1886. Later known as Theatre Row, it is still part of Vancouver's Entertainment District today. Along Granville Street there is a significant number of early 20th-century heritage buildings that now house shopping, offices, music venues and bars. Aaron Chapman, author of several books on Vancouver history, and Michael Gordon, recently-retired Senior Planner for downtown Vancouver shared images and stories about Granville Street including highlights from venerable venues, the Orpheum, the Commodore and the Vogue Theatre. The lecture explored how the street has changed, its evolution of over 100 years of nightspots and the speakers' thoughts on how this popular corridor may change in the future.

October 9th - Vancouver’s Police Museum: Stories from 240 E Cordova
The building that houses the Vancouver Police Museum and Archives is a key artifact in the collection. Purpose built and opened in 1932, the former Coroner's Office, Coroner's Court, and City Analyst Laboratory reflects both innovative technology and city planning of its time. It remained in operation for seven decades. Transitioning to a museum starting in 1986, the building and its preserved spaces provide insight into how the Coroner’s work was conducted during much of the 20th century. Museum Director, Rosslyn Shipp and Curator, Elizabeth Peterson discussed the use and adaptation of the building’s facilities through the decades, the Museum’s custodianship of the historic site today and the unique perspective the Museum offers to connect with Vancouver’s history.

September 18th - Private Property, Public Regulation, and the History of the Arbutus Corridor
The Arbutus Greenway is a 10km linear park through Vancouver's west side that, in the two years since the City purchased the land from Canadian Pacific, has become a favourite route for cyclists and pedestrians. The Greenway is only the latest use for this strip of land that the Canadian Pacific Railway assembled in 1902 for its Vancouver & Lulu Island Railway and on which passenger and freight trains rolled until a final freight shipment in 2001. Professor Douglas Harris explored the conflict between the City and Canadian Pacific that led to the Supreme Court of Canada. Douglas will also considered the manner in which Canadian law establishes the balance between public regulation and private property.

April 24th - Themes, Subthemes and Memes: Telling History in a Different Way
For this lecture, Heritage Consultant Donald Luxton looked at Vancouver’s history from his groundbreaking work, the Vancouver Historic Context and Thematic Framework. From the big ideas of city planning to the details of design and the everyday, Donald covered a wide swath of the city’s history from social movements such as Temperance, Suffrage and the Women’s Liberation Movement, through all manner of social, economic and community endeavors. This includes everything from the development of water and sanitary services to barber shops and beauty salons. It provided a fascinating glimpse of this work and a fresh perspective on the identification of historic places. The Thematic Framework provides a foundation for identifying gaps in what can be recognized as having heritage value in Vancouver and has an integral part in the City of Vancouver Heritage Action Plan.

March 20th - Squat City: An Informal History of Squatters in Vancouver
The story of the squatter's shack in Vancouver encompasses generations of history including the origins of Gastown and Kitsilano, the dispossession of Indigenous peoples, the Depression-era city, the post-WWII veterans' housing crisis, the hippie movement and modern say social housing activists who occupied the old Woodwards store in 2002. Author and Historian Daniel Francis investigated how the squatter's shack contrasts with glass towers of the modern city, a different kind of iconic structure, projecting a view from the margins. This lecture discussed the historic context of the squatter's shack, as well as its place in our contemporary "City of Glass".

February 27th - Stanley Park: Digging Deeper and Rethinking Cultural Heritage
Stanley Park is often thought of as a relatively untouched piece of nature amid Vancouver’s built landscape. The appreciation and understanding of the park is broadening and deepening, as thousands of years of First Nations presence are better understood beyond the colonial history. With this context, Reconciliation Planner Rena Soutar (Cha’an Tdut) and Vancouver Park Board Archaeologist Geordie Howe consider how we define “our cultural heritage” as a city. They explored the Indigenous peoples’ relationships to the land, the approach to stewardship and how the environment was cultivated to support communities.

2017 LECTURES (click to view)

2016 LECTURES (click to view)

2015 LECTURES (click to view)

2014 LECTURES (click to view)

Professional Development Credits are dependent on the lecture topic and speaker: AIBC, PIBC, BOABC, BCSLA, AICBC

You can earn 1 Old School credit per Evening Lecture or Brown Bag Talk, to a maximum of 3 towards the Certificate in Heritage Conservation.